My Unrepentant Abuse of Exclamation Points...
Exclamation points. I abuse them. For those of you that have been blessed with a handwritten thank you note from me, you must kindly overlook this faux pas. I really can't help myself.
Believe me, I've tried. I will most assuredly end a sentence with a period, and try very diligently not to add the vertical line above it, but I just can't. I read the sentence back,
"Thank you so much for your generous gift."
and it seems as if I can't truly mean it without the vertical line, and so without a thought to the previous 3 exclamation points, I add the vertical line right above the dot. Therefore, every thank you note I write ends with 6 or 7 exclamation points and no periods.
I know that the general public or experts in this matter believe that this is akin to yelling at the recipient, but I simply can't stop myself. This disorder does not plague my everyday writing - just my thank you note writing.
"What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?" you say.
Well, this past week was similar to an exclamation point, I believe. I found myself in Aurora, Colorado worshiping with almost 500 other ministers. As I knelt at the altar with tears streaming down my face, every sentence I spoke surely ended with a dot and a vertical line. He simply has done too much as per usual.
For Daran and me and our team, this conference caps out the school year and is a time of reflection and verbal thank you notes to Jesus with lots of exclamation points.
We began the year with 1 student leader (Dang COVID!). We ended the year with 5.
On top of that, we ended the year having seen 6 water baptized and 1 atheist saved.
On Friday, we will write down all of these exclamation points and more and commit them to paper and google drive.
Why? So we can come back and remember them.
When? When life seems to have no exclamation points.
So I guess I'm not sorry for my unrepentant abuse of exclamation points. I am just thoroughly completely thankful to Jesus and to you for making them possible.